It's a Dog's Life (now with bonus Fishface chapter!)
by purplefern
Summary: Being a villain is hard enough, but it's even harder when you have to cope with mutation and playful puppy instincts, and for Xever, dealing with a total loss of freedom.
1. It's a Dog's Life

_This started off as a simple thing. What's Dogpund's life like? Then it sort of got away from me. I don't know if I'm going to more with this or not, so if you like it, please say so. To think that this all started just with the idea of Mikey taunting Dogpound with Donnie's stick. _

_He's running in the park, chasing something. Just running and running, chasing a vague outline of a something. He doesn't know why, but he has to catch that something! As he gets closer, the something takes a shape, and can be seen as a squirrel. Not just a normal squirrel, but a green one armed with ninja weapons. He gets "this" close to that squirrel, and then he wakes up. _

"Bradford! Bradford come here!" bellows a deep voice from outside the room where Dogpound was sleeping just a few seconds before. Dogpound gets up to go to his master, all the while thinking. _More of these dreams, this is starting to get out of control_. "Yes, Master Shredder?" asks Dogpound as he kneels as best as he can before Shredder.

"Despite your repeated failure, I have decided to keep you around, cur. I have a mission for you."

"Anything Master." Said Dogpound, bowing lower and flattening his ears in submitance.

"I need you to go down to a lab, and steal a high-tech weapon that they've been developing. Then we can use it in our battle with those accursed turtles."

"Yes, Master. Of course. I promise, this time I will not fail you." _Shinng_

"I should hope not, for your sake." Dogpound bows once more, then rises and leaves for his room. "This time, I will not fail Master Shredder, dreams or no dreams" said Dogpound as he walked back to his room. "Dreams? What dreams?" asked a feminine voice from behind. Dogpound turned around and saw Karai, who had a smirk on her face, as usual. Dogpound growled and replied, "None of your business, Karai."

"Now, now, is that any way to talk to Shredder's daughter?" said Karai, with her hands on her hips. Another growl made its way out of his throat before he replied, "You think you can do anything you want, just because you're Shredder's daughter. But remember, princess, you're still just a little girl. I could rip you to shreds."

"And my father could put you to sleep" retorted Karai, "You're like the family pet, really. How'd you like to play fetch sometime? Here, Bradford! Good, Bradford! Get the high-tech laser, Bradford! Not too much different from what you did when you were human, really." Dogpound could only growl again, this time with teeth barred, before shoving Karai out of his way so that he could continue on to the closet that was the closest thing he had to a room, now. How could this of happened to him? He went from rich and famous martial artist superstar, and one of the Shredder's top henchmen, to being a mutant freak, serving underneath Shredder's brat, Karai. In the middle of his angry, self-pitying thoughts, a feeling bubbled up from the back of his mind. A sudden feeling of love for Karai, coupled with a want to play and protect. As soon as a stupid smile started to make its way to his lips, Dogpound shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts. He walked into his room, and looked into his mirror. The mirror was shattered in the top left corner, from when Dogpound first moved into this room. It was shortly after his mutation on the rooftop of the Wolf Hotel, when he saw himself in the mirror and smashed it out of disgust at his own appearance. After all those times he had called those mutant turtles freaks, now he was the freak. The irony was almost more than he could bear. But still, in the corner of his mind, there was the thought, the feeling, of play, and lots of it. Every day, those thoughts were there, and it had been getting harder and harder lately to shove them aside, so he could continue to be the cold-hearted, evil minion that Shredder wanted.

Dogpound prepared for his mission, going over katas as best as he could. He stopped when he could hear the heavy, clunking footsteps of Fishface as he came down the hall. He expected Fishface to barge into his room at any second, with some smart remark or other. But his improved hearing had deceived him, and Fishface was actually several minutes away from his room. _Well, at least there are some good things about this_. Dogpound's amazing senses of hearing and smell were certainly an advantage, especially in the field of the ninja, when people (and turtles) were always trying to go unnoticed. There wasn't much time to mull over these thoughts, because at that moment Fiashface walked in, and yelled in his accent, "Come on, mutt. Or did you forget that we have a mission to complete?"

"No, I haven't forgotten, sushi-boy. I don't want to fail Master Shredder anymore than you do. Let's go." They left the old abandoned church that Shredder used for a lair, walking out into a cool night on the streets of New York. They had with them a group of about 20 Foot grunts, the only people that they were actually higher than in status, and since the lab wasn't far off, they went off on foot to get there. They got to the lab without any trouble, and bust in, setting off an alarm on the building. The high sound hurt Dogpound's ears, so he lashed out at it, smashing it and effectively shutting it up. "So far, so good" he grumbled. Then, from above them came a loud battle-cry. "Booyahkasha!" Cried Mikey, as the four turtle brothers jumped down to stop the Foot clan. "It's the turtles!" yelled Fishface.

"Get them!" yelled Dogpound in reply. Then, pointing to a group of grunts, he ordered, "Get that laser out of here, failure is not an option!"

"Dude, haven't you _ever_ seen Mythbusters? Failure is always an option!" said a familiar annoying voice, one that Dogpound regretted that he had ever heard. As Dogpound turned to fight Mikey, hackles raised, he was distracted by the fight between Donnie and a Foot grunt in the corner of his eye. More importantly, Donnie's bo staff caught his eye. Taking advantage of Dogpound's distraction, Mikey thwacked him hard in the side of the face with his nunchuk. "Come on! If you don't focus, this battle isn't nearly as fun!" Recovering, Dogpound got up and struck at Mikey, which he easily dodged. "You seem a little off today, Dogpound. Distracted by something?"

"Shut up!" growled Dogpound, as he rushed at Mikey once again. As Mikey dodged, he wondered out-loud, "Seriously, what's going on? You seemed so interested in Donnie's fight. Really, you're hurting my feelings a little." Mikey kept up the running commentary throughout the fight, (which was really more like him kicking Dogpound's tail.) "I said: shut it! You little twerp!" Dogpound struck again, this time actually making contact, throwing Mikey into Donnie and knocking them both on to the ground. "Hey, Donnie! You were just the turtle I was looking for!" Shoving Mikey off from on top of him, Donnie asked, "Why, Mikey?"

"Well, you're not going to believe this, but I think I have an idea!" Donnie stared incredulously at Mikey then replied, "Mikey, this really isn't the time for jokes."

"No, no joke! I actually have an idea! But, I'm going to need to borrow your bo staff."

"I am _not_ trusting you with my staff, just so you can break it with your stupid plan! What is it, anyway?" Mikey whispers it to Donnie, and Donnie smiles and laughs a little.

"Man, if that actually works, it would be worth losing my bo! But do you think it will?" To this, Mikey just shrugs and replies, "You don't know unless you try." Donnie thinks about this for a bit, and then reluctantly gives his bo over to Mikey. "Hope this plan of yours works." Mikey heads back into the fight and runs over to Dogpound, hitting a few grunts with Donnie's staff baseball bat style on the way.  
"Hey, Dogpound!" yells Mikey. Dogpound turns around from where he was fighting Leo, and looks at Mikey, ready to crush him with his huge hand. As he moves towards him, Mikey starts to shake donnie's bo staff up and down, saying, "Oh, Dogpound! You want Donnie's stick? You want the stick?" Try as he might to fight it, Dogpound really wants that stick. And because of all of the adrenaline in him from the fight, his control is lacking. He stares at the stick, while Leo stands in the back watching, temporarily forgotten. "Well, then, go get the stick!" With that, Mikey throws the stick as hard as he can out of the fight, and away from the laser. Almost without thinking, Dogpound runs after it, first on twos, then switching to fours. With their best fighter out of the fight, the rest of the foot soldiers give up and run for the roof tops. The turtles gather up the laser to keep it out of the Foot's grasp, and head back to the lair, laughing all the while. "I can't believe that that actually worked!" exclaimed Donnie with a laugh. "Seeing that almost made it worth losing my bo staff!"

"I know, right!?" said Mikey, "That was so awesomely funny!"

"What, what happened?" asked Raph, who too busy fighting Fishface to notice what was going on with Dogpound.

"Well, Mikey had a little game of fetch with Dogpound. Made him chase Donnie's staff right out of the fight!" Raph laughs until he almost can't breathe. "Seriously? That's awesome." All of the turtles continue to have a good laugh at Dogpound's expense all the way back to the lair.

_Stick! Stick! Ohmygosh I want the stick!_ Screams Dogpound's thoughts as he chases after the staff thrown by Mikey. The same feelings of his dreams come back to him as he runs after the stick. When he gets to the stick, he grabs it in triumph, realizing after a few seconds that he just left the fight to play fetch with one of the turtles. He breaks the stick in half in his fist, and screams to the sky in anger, "What is wrong with me!?" _What's Master Shredder going to say when he learns that I lost the fight to chase a stick?! And Xever will never let me live this down._ But, deep inside, he liked the overwhelming feeling of joy. It gave him a feeling of freedom that he never had when serving Shredder. Shaking all of these thoughts away, Dogpound heads back to the site of the fight in shame, with his tail between his legs.


	2. Trapped under Glass

_So, people asked, and I decided to give. A fanfiction about Fishface. That, and I'm bored. That seems to be my motivation for most of my stories. Sorry, I couldn't think of any clever fish puns to title this one._

He was drowning. That's what it felt like. In all his years of being a criminal on the streets, he'd had many close escapes, including a few with water, so he knew what almost drowning felt like. But how could he be drowning on dry land? Every breath that he tried to draw just seemed to make him have even less oxygen. "Help…me…" he begged, not even knowing who he was begging to. Red dots started to pop up as he grew closer to unconsciousness. He didn't think he was going to last much longer. With one last attempt at breathing, Xever slipped into darkness.

When he woke up, he was underwater. He was also breathing. What had happened? And why was he not drowning? Had he died? Is this what death was like? He tried to move, he tried to do a freestyle kick, but ended up doing a side to side motion. Why'd he do that? He looked over to his uncoperating legs, and gasped, mouth filling with water. His legs were gone! In their place was a pinkish red tail. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down, and realized that he wasn't exactly breathing. Instead he was taking water into his mouth and running it over…his gills. He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't notice that he had begun to swim back and forth, the underwater equivalent of pacing. What he did notice was his stomach growling. When was the last time he had eaten? How long was he out?

Normally, Xever would've just walked down to a restaurant or the fridge in the Purple Dragons headquarters and helped himself. But now, he realized, if he left the water he would start land-drowning, unable to move anywhere, anyway. He was trapped in this stupid fish-tank! Unable to bust heads, go on missions, rough up his Purple Dragons when they were being absolute idiots. Unable to go home, or get food for himself, would someone have to feed him, then? God, he couldn't even walk anymore! As the list of things he could no longer do grew larger and larger, he got angrier; Xever was not one to take having all of his freedom being gone well. Xever's now cold blood had begun to boil as he remembered Bradford's actions on top of the Wolf hotel. What was he thinking? Jabbing his sword into a bomb filled with who-knows-what? _That idiot, Bradford! I'm sure this is all his fault. _Xever doesn't dwell in self-pity, he gets mad. He ran his tongue over his new razor sharp teeth, thinking of various painful ways to get Bradford back for this. He grinned sadistically to himself as he pictured sinking his new fangs into Bradford's arm. He'd get back at that petty rich-boy. In the middle of his vengeful thoughts, someone opened up a hatch on the top of his tank. Curious what was going on in the outside world, he swam over to the opening and looked to see who opened it. He couldn't believe his eyes, it was… some kind of dog-thing. The puzzle pieces clicked into place, as Xever realized what he was looking at. "Bradford!?" Never mind about biting him, this was _almost _good enough. "Well, you look _horrible_. Do you need a scratch behind the ears, pooch?" Then he started laughing causing a column of bubbles to rise to the surface. Then Bradford growled, he actually _growled_, and replied, "This coming from a talking fish whose stuck being a decoration for Master Shredder's throne room." Xever narrowed his eyes (at least he still had eyelids, he thought that fish didn't have any) and retorted back, "At least I'm somewhat threatening. You're practically fluffy, an adorable _pet _for Master Shredder." Bradford leaned in closer, giving another growl as if to prove how threatening he was. Big mistake. Xever grinned to himself and then jumped to bite Bradford like he planned. He almost let go in shock as he felt something leave through his two massive teeth, but stayed on until Bradford ripped him off and threw him back into the pool. _Oh,_ _that felt good. _thought Xever as he smirked in satisfaction. "You stupid fish!" Bradford started to yell, but his words became slurred and he fell, crashing to the ground. "See, Bradford, I am threatening. If I could only get out of this tank, I could easily take out those turtles" he ended up saying this last part to himself, because Bradford started mumbling on about Shredder as a dogcatcher, or some other nonsense. Why was he acting like this? All Xever did was bite him. Ah, well. Xever never cared for Bradford, and only liked him less now that he had confined him to this stupid tank. After his humiliating defeat on the roof of the hotel, Xever knew that he would have to prove his usefulness to Master Shredder. And he could only do that once he got out of this tank.

_For this one, there's defiantly going to be more. Stay tuned. (You know what's weird, and kind of unfair? There's no Fishface/Xever or Bradford/Dogpound character choice for Ninja Turtles. How weird is that? You figured that they'd be pretty important.) _


	3. Caught and Released

_Sorry. It's been forever since I did anything with this But on the bright side, I found a fish pun for this chapter! Yay!. Well, here it is at long-last, the rest of the Fishface fic. _

* * *

"Alright, Xever, get ready to walk." Finally, after weeks of his world being diminished to a tank below the Shredder's throne room, Xever was going to be able to get out. Too bad that he had to rely on a nerd like Baxter Stockman for his dream of the last few weeks to come true. He almost couldn't believe that he was going to walk again, as he carefully stood up on the robotic legs. Here he was, standing on his own two legs! Well, sort of. It was close enough. He tried to take a few steps, and was met with more joy than he'd ever felt as his robotic legs took a step forward. And then; everything fell apart. The legs started going haywire! They ran everywhere, dragging his body along for the ride. When he finally stopped moving, the legs were kicking him in the face. Stupid Baxter! He got them all wrong!

"Fix these, or I will bite your head off!" he yelled as he tried to ward off the attacking feet. And he could, too. After that time biting Dogpound, as the turtles apparently now called Bradford, Xever had realized that his jaws were strong. While the turtle Leonardo's katanas could barely scratch Dogpound's skin, Xever's teeth had gone right in, and stuck for a while. It wouldn't be very hard, biting through the neck of someone as scrawny as Baxter Stockman.

And, as a bonus, according to Baxter he had been mutated with a venomous fish. Dogpound had found that out before, though. He had almost died from Xever's venom when he bit him. Good thing that Shredder had found him, otherwise he might have died right then and there.

He mentally sighed in relief as the legs turned off. Then Master Shredder came in and started threatening Baxter, but Xever hardly listened. He was thinking about how much he wanted those legs to work. Then he could get out of here…

* * *

"Alright, Xever. I've tweaked the controls a little, and it should be working now".

"They had better" he threatened. Then he stood carefully up for the hundredth time that day. At first, the legs seemed to be working, he was able to walk in a square around the throne room. But, like all the times before, the legs suddenly grew a mind of their own, and ran all over the place. Xever could hear Bradford's howling laughter coming from behind him. "I could watch this forever!" he said through his laughter.

Xever grimaced, from where he was dragging behind the robotic legs. "Go. Chase. A mailman!" he yelled in-between hits on the floor. He needed to hit Bradford, or should he say Dogpound, where it hurt, and mutation was defiantly a nerve. Especially with Dogpound, there were so many insults that could be thrown at him. But he must not have heard, because he kept on laughing, until he was interrupted by Karai's entrance, as she slammed some metal-looking man onto the counter. "I've seen the robots up close. They call themselves the Kraang." Xever stopped listening after that, he had been so close this time! That idiotic Baxter couldn't do anything right.

"This exactly the sort of neuro-interface that I've been trying to develop!" Xever's interest peaked, that sounded something like progress. Maybe he'd still be walking yet.

* * *

Finally, the legs were done. Stinkman….er, Stockman, had finally had the Purple Dragons steal enough of this Kraang stuff that the legs now moved the way that Xever wanted them to. Standing carefully up, he stomped one of them, and tried them out, doing a kicking move that he used to do often as a human, but with a twist. It worked perfectly; maybe even better than when he was human, because instead of having to work on twisting his hips the right way, his legs could just go right was strange, but deadly affective. He smiled an evil smile to himself. _Now I can finally get some payback from those turtles that did this to me. _ "What has two robotic legs, and _loves _to stomp turtles?" He didn't even bother waiting for an answer. "This guy!" he exclaimed, pointing both thumbs at himself. He waited back in the shadows, waiting for the turtles to show, which he was sure that they would. Right on cue, he heard Leonardo doing his "heroic" voice.

"Baxter Stockman, whatever you're up to with those robotic parts, it ends now!" Xever couldn't wait to show them what he was working on. He smirked from his place from the shadows, ready to make his dramatic entrance."You want to know what I'm working on? Where here it is!" Then he snapped his fingers, the signal. Xever jumped from the shadows, doing some flips on the way, before landing right in front of the turtles. He looked at them with an evil smile, expecting them to be afraid of his return. He was a little disappointed as they all burst out _laughing. _"Look, sushi that delivers itself!" Were they _insulting _him? Xever scowled, and showed them just what his new legs could do, by kicking cart up and into the wall on the other side of the room. He looked at them, expecting them to now realize what a threat he was. He gave a satisfied smirk as he saw a trace of fear on their faces. "Man, Fishface is a little sensitive!"

"You're calling him Fishface?" asked Leonardo, clearly amused.

"Well, it was that or robocarp." _Fishface? Robocarp?! _Had they completely forgotten that he was Xever? That couldn't stand. Embarrassing name or not, the newly christened Fishface would show them. The turtles had better watch out, because this dangerous (not to mention ticked off) fish was released from his tank, and had a thirst for vengeance.

* * *

_Yeah, yeah. I know this sucked. But I got lazy. R&R but don't kill me! _


End file.
